Reactive Narrating

[DarkWarrior]

Just recently I built a new desktop PC; I built a mid range workstation class computer for the purpose of running Visual Studio and AutoCad. However, with me being the gamer that I am, the very first thing I did after installing Oblivion was download Steam and start downloading demos in order to "exercise the graphics card." Oh the excuses I find to play video games. Anyways, one of the demos I downloaded was a demo to an indie game called "Bastion." Now Bastion is one of those action adventure games that plays very similar to Diablo 2; it has the isometric camera and the player pawn is controlled through the WASD control scheme, with the mouse controlling weapons. But the part of the game that I though was extremely interesting was how it presents the storyline.

Now, I am not going to present any spoilers. If you want to know what the story is about or want spoilers, then go download the game from Steam and find out for yourself, the demo is free. The game presents the story through something called Reactive Narrating. Essentially it is where the game completely narrates the story as the player is playing the game, adding to the illusion that the player is instead living through a story instead of simply playing a game; in my opinion, it adds to the immersion.

Now my question is, what do other gamers think of Reactive Narrating? And do you think that this is worth experimenting with in a storyline mod?

Link to Bastion: http://supergiantgames.com/?page_id=242

Edited September 27, 2011 by DarkWarrior

[Lanceor]

For those who are wondering, I found a gameplay video that illustrates the concept:

Narrating games is definitely an interesting concept. It's already widely used in sports games though at this point, I'm not sure if it will function well in other games. Then again, maybe I'm not used to the idea yet and narration in games is something will take off over the next few years.

The trend of games is that they are becoming more immersive and cinema-like, giving players a "you are there" feeling. With the exception of some hardboiled detective stories, frequent narration is not commonly used in cinema. Even then, it is used sparingly as bookends to "chapters" in the story. This suggests to me that Spielberg, Scorsese, Cameron etc. don't consider it to be a helpful storytelling aid.

Assuming that we think that it will aid storytelling, there are some technical limitations:

• 
  
  
• The narration starts to get repetitive and annoying (even in that short 10 minute video)
  
• Every conceivable action the player could do would require a prerecorded passage and some sort of trigger to play the voice.
  
• The context of the narration would change depending on the character. A noble warrior would do a quest quite differently from a chocolate elf with BBB installed.
  

Overall, I think it might be a helpful add-on for games where the number of actions is limited (sports games, linear dungeon crawls) but it would "de-immersify" an open-ended game like Oblivion unless used very sparingly. Then again, I would love for someone to prove me wrong.

[ResolveThatChord]

I've played through Bastion, and I must say it was worth every dollar. I think that reactive narration is something that developers should implement more often, but as more control over the narrative is given to the player, the work required would exponentially increase. Bastion's protagonist was already well defined from the outset, and the player is only given a few real choices that influence the narrative, which worked well, but if you want the kind of depth and freedom that The Elder Scrolls offers, you're looking at a lot of voice acting and recording work, most of which the player won't hear in one play through.

Not that that would be a problem for Bethesda, who do that already to an awe inspiring degree.

[Zabre]

Currently on my fourth(?) playthrough of Bastion. As stated, worth every dollar.